


A Little Bit Farther Off the Ground

by brilligspoons



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 18:51:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilligspoons/pseuds/brilligspoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spaceship AU. Stiles has been doing his level best to avoid going into space, but apparently his life doesn't always work out the way he thinks it will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit Farther Off the Ground

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mosca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/gifts).



> Written for **mosca** for Teen Wolf Holidays. Beta-read by **darthjamtart**.  <3

The problem is, Stiles hates space. It's too big, too much, too open, too - _everything_. It's all just so far apart, and there's nothingness where his brain says there should be _something_ , anything, firmly beneath him.

To be fair, he hadn't known that before going up there the first time. He remembers his mother keeping him awake late into the night with stories of planets with pink atmospheres, moons made entirely of glittering crystals, and asteroid fields that spiraled like strands of DNA into the mouths of black holes. There were strange species of mammals and insects making the ship's ducts their new home, run-ins with pirates trying to steal a whole fleet's worth of precious elements and parts at a time, and always, _always_ , his mother and her team of engineers coming up with ingenious ways to save the day, usually to the chagrin of their hapless captain.

His mother teaches him to reverse engineer a basic filtration system when he's six, and she laughs for hours when he programs all the house showers to produce teal water. Breakfast and lunch (and sometimes dinner) are filled with lessons about keeping well-maintained systems, his mother using food and cutlery and dishes to illustrate her points. She's often away, and always for months at a time, but she leaves Stiles with a project every time, checking in with his progress during their weekly vid-calls. He's putting the finishing touches on a rudimentary toy shuttle when his father comes into his room, face ashen and grieving, to tell him that there'd been an accident, an exposed fiber line that touched something it shouldn't have and exploded, and _Mom's not coming home, son_.

They don't really talk about her much after that, but Stiles creates his own projects and is accepted to the engineering academy a few hours south of them, his mother's alma mater, right after high school ends.

That's when he's faced with the incontrovertible proof that he is just not made for space travel. His class is on their way to the colony on Mars for the first time, and the moment they break atmosphere and his attention is drawn to the window, he has the first (and worst) panic attack since his mother's death. The medical officer onboard sedates him the rest of the way to Mars and has to do it again when the same thing happens on their trip back to Earth. The second attempt at an interplanetary trip is even worse, and the third is an event Stiles still has nightmares about to this day.

Stiles ignores his father's protests and drops out of the academy not too long after that one.

"Nope," Stiles tells him not too long after he moves back home. "Not worth it. Maybe in a year or two I'll look into other universities, but that was the only full ride I had, and - no. Just no."

"I think you're making a huge mistake, kid," his father replies, but he finally leaves it at that and doesn't bring it up again.

And Stiles is mostly okay with life after his aborted foray into the world of space travel engineering, really. It's not like he doesn't have friends, good ones even, who stayed in Beacon Hills after they graduated from school. Allison works with him at the plant, and they have drinks every Friday with Boyd and dinner with Scott whenever he's home from nursing school. Stiles drags his mother's old cookbooks out from the pantry and systematically cooks or bakes every single dish listed in them, much to the annoyance of his father who had just installed a top-of-the-line food replicator Stiles' senior year. Every so often Jackson and Lydia drop in with stories about their piloting instructors and Lydia's rivalry with the only other student in her class who can successfully navigate a light-jump across more than three solar systems, and Stiles only feels a _little_ queasy when space is mentioned these days.

It's - well, it's not ideal. But it's something, and in spite of a twinge of regret every now and then, Stiles doesn't feel all that unhappy. Really.

***

"Really?" asks Lydia. "Really."

They're having lunch alone together for the first time in a while, and Lydia seems to take this as tacit permission to interrogate him. He thinks he should have seen it coming, what with the way she'd pointedly foisted Jackson off onto Scott and Allison. Though in his defense, she had distracted him with promises of free food from the nice steakhouse.

"Everyone says that," Stiles says. He waves his fork in front of his face. "I don't get it. What about me screams, 'I'm unhappy, ask me about my life choices'?"

"Don't take that tone of voice with me. I remember what you were like when you received the acceptance letter, Stiles. That was not the reaction of someone who was satisfied with staying in Beacon Hills and working at a plant."

Stiles sighs and sets his fork down. "I - yes, okay? Yes, I'm a little unhappy with how things turned out. Sometimes. Not all the time. I'm mostly fine, like, ninety-eight percent fine."

Lydia just looks at him as she takes a bite of her steak. He reminds himself that she can't, in fact, be looking into his soul because that is impossible and also ridiculous. But she continues to _not say anything_ and stare at him, and Stiles doesn't have that much resolve in his body.

"I realize that 'fine' is unacceptable, and 'ninety-eight percent fine' sounds bad," he begins.

"Oh, good, because I never took you for an idiot, Stilinski," says Lydia. She sets her own cutlery down and places her hands palm-down on the table, clearly steeling herself for something. "Stiles. You deserve to be happy, not just fine. You deserve to explore your skills and learn new things and experience life beyond your childhood home."

Stiles blinks. "Allison made you practice that, didn't she."

"Shut up," Lydia says mildly. "Humanity didn't figure out space travel and create treaties with other civilizations and species in the surrounding solar systems just so you could sit on your ass and whine about feeling a little queasy when you look into the vastness of space."

"Not - not exactly what happened, but I appreciate the sentiment," Stiles replies when she pauses. "I think. Look, even if I wanted to try again, the window of opportunity for me to take advantage of my scholarship at the academy has passed, and what I have saved is not enough."

"So you're just going to give up, then."

Stiles picks his fork and knife back up and viciously cuts into his food. "Looks like."

***

A little over a week later, Stiles' boss sends him down to the San Francisco docking port with a shipment of test design cores. It's not unusual for a senior employee or high-powered office drone to accompany a delivery, especially when the units are special orders or a brand new design, but Stiles has never been asked before now, nor had he ever expected to be asked. He must look especially confused, because the foreman shakes his head and says, "Apparently you've got friends in high places who want you to try new things, kid."

So it's not a surprise when Lydia and Jackson are waiting by the transport shuttle. Stiles scowls and walks by them without saying anything. He sees Jackson roll his eyes.

"Don't give _me_ the silent treatment," he says. "Lydia and Allison are the ones who said something to my parents. I just want to get back to school already."

Stiles wants to make a disparaging comment about meddlesome busybodies, but he likes his nose unbroken, thank you very much, and doesn't trust Lydia not to take a swing at him. "Whatever," he says. "We're going on a field trip together, huh? It's like we're in grade school again. Yay."

"You're welcome, Stiles," says Lydia. "Come on, we're already off schedule."

It doesn't occur to him to ask how the two of them managed to get assigned to flying a shipment until later when he's checking the locks on the containers. Stiles is almost completely sure that the higher-ups would never trust two piloting students and a junior assembly supervisor with a delivery this important, regardless of how much political pull Jackson's and Lydia's parents have. He tries to put it out of his mind as he goes through the status checklist, but once the idea takes hold, he can't shake it. He chews on the blunt end of his stylus, eyes drawn over to the door that leads to the cockpit of the transport shuttle.

_It's just Jackson and Lydia,_ Stiles thinks. _You can ask them. They'll have an explanation that makes sense. Maybe._ He takes a hesitant step towards the cockpit door and pauses. _We're due to arrive in thirty minutes. It can probably wait until then._

And then the shuttle lurches to one side. Stiles bites down on his tongue as he's thrown off his feet, and he lands hard on his left arm when he hits the floor. He gasps and rolls onto his back, grasping at nonexistent hand-holds when the shuttle shifts violently to the other side. He slides head-first into the wall, grunting at the impact, and then they seem to level out again.

_What the hell?_ he thinks as he catches his breath.

"Shit." It's Jackson's voice, echoing weirdly.

Stiles turns his head. There's a vent a few inches from his chin. _Probably connecting the cockpit to this section._ He hears Lydia swear.

"Those _morons_ ," she says. "They were supposed to wait for the beacon to activate tomorrow night, not pick us out of the air on our way to the dock."

"You know how Derek gets when he's nervous," Jackson tells her. "Danny told me he was restless last night. More than usual, that is."

"How could he tell? It's _Derek_ , he never stops being restless when he's on the ship."

"Whatever. Too late to do anything about it now - oh. Oh, shit. Stilinski."

Stiles ignores the brief spike of annoyance at having been forgotten and scrambles up off his back and to his feet. In three steps he's at the cockpit door, but he doesn't have to open it because it's swinging out and knocking him back just as he reaches for the handle. He registers a look of shock on Lydia's face before he shakes his tablet in her face.

"Just what the hell was that?" he demands. "Who are Derek and Danny? What is going on?"

"Stiles, just calm down," Lydia says. "I didn't mean for you to get involved in this, but -"

"But _what_?"

Lydia looks him in the eye. "We're smugglers, and we're stealing these cores."

Stiles stares at her incredulously for a moment before letting a strangled whimper leave his throat and mouth. He whips his head around to look at the storage units, and then back at Lydia. Jackson has joined them, stands behind her with his arms crossed and stern expression stretched across his face.

"Smugglers," Stiles says, "and you're stealing the cores."

"You know I don't like to repeat myself."

"No, I'm just making sure I've got this right, because this is - wow, this is messed up." Stiles runs a hand through his hair. "How - why - what the hell, Lydia, how did you even -"

Lydia waves a dismissive hand at him. "I won't pretend we're doing it for some moralistic purpose or whatever redemptive scenario you're coming up with right now. There's a lot of money to be made on the black market. We were offered an in our first year at school. We took it. We run errands as often as we can while still maintaining our cover as piloting trainees. Simple as that." She tosses her hair behind her shoulder and gives him a fake smile. "But our partners are massive _cock-ups_ who can't be trusted to keep calm and wait for our signal. Hence our present situation."

Stiles sighs and looks up at the shuttle ceiling. "Which is?"

"Caught in a transport beam. We'll be in the ship's bay in thirty seconds or so."

A wave of nausea crests in Stiles' stomach. He sinks back down to the floor and draws his knees up to his chest, resting his head between them. A hand pats his head awkwardly. He doesn't have enough time to warn the person doing it before he's pitching forward and puking on their shoes.

"Oh, _come on_ ," he hears Jackson say, and then he passes out.

***

The low, rhythmic beep of medical equipment is what finally wakes Stiles up. He's familiar enough with the sound from his many trips to the Beacon County emergency department during his brief foray into school sports, not to mention his intimate acquaintance with the ship medbay on the trips to and from Mars while he was still a student. He doesn't like it any more than he did then, and making them stop is enough incentive to lever himself off the bed and onto the cold metal floor. His knees are shaky but hold him up well enough when he puts his weight on them, and he manages to make his way over to the control board. Stiles presses the button that he knows will turn off the room's heart monitor. Nothing happens.

"Unbelievable," he mutters.

He glances from one end of the controls to the other and eventually spies the catch release for the panel's face. He trips it and swings the cover out, and then he winces as he's suddenly faced with the worst mess of wires and cables he's ever seen. Stiles pokes through it for several frustrating minutes, discovers that the line connecting the heart rate monitoring system to the rest of the controls is just plugged into the wrong port, and switches it out into the right one. He sighs and closes the panel back up, reveling in the sudden silence.

"Whoever put that together should have their life revoked," Stiles says to the room.

"You really don't want to tell Derek that," a voice behind him says. Stiles swings around to find a man about his own age - and tall, and dark-haired, and dark-eyed, and sort of absurdly _handsome_ , all of which Stiles is having trouble processing - standing in the doorway. "His species has a lot fewer qualms about punching people who insult them."

"I guess they have to be good at something, because it's not technology," Stiles blurts out. He winces again, but the man apparently doesn't disagree, because Stiles gets a smile and a low chuckle. He thinks back to the short conversation he'd had with Lydia prior to losing his lunch in the shuttle and surmises that this must be Danny. _She didn't say he was stupidly good-looking,_ he thinks frantically. _Though I suppose the whole smuggler thing was more important news at the time._ He fights not to wring his hands together as he takes in Danny's shoulders and trim waist and long, long legs.

"Stiles," Danny says.

He snaps his gaze back up to Danny's face, feeling his face flush bright red. "Present and accounted for," Stiles says. "Uh, Danny. Because Lydia only mentioned two of you, and if you're talking about Derek, then -"

"You're right." Danny jerks his head, motioning to the hallway behind him. "Come on. Lydia told me about your, uh, issue, so I put all the window shields up. She said that you'd get over yourself eventually, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way? So, you know. No space to see now."

Stiles maybe falls a little bit in love with Danny right then.

***

Lydia squints at him. "I don't think I trust your intentions."

"You said I needed to get out of Beacon Hills," Stiles argues. "I thought you'd be happy that I'm agreeing to this half-baked idea."

"I'm not happy about it," says Derek. Stiles is almost certain he's never going to stop jumping whenever he speaks. "In fact, I even have the escape pod we're sticking him in and sending back to Earth."

"Please," says Stiles, "like you even know how to hardwire a trajectory course."

Danny leaps out of his chair to stand between them just as Derek's reaching out, probably to strangle Stiles. "None of that, none of that. Besides, we can't actually send him back anyway - we're wanted, and they're going to think Stiles knows all sorts of things about us now that we've had him more than twenty four hours. They'd rip him to shreds."

Lydia jabs Stiles in the arm. "Stop batting your eyelashes at Danny, you _hussy_ ," she whispers.

"We do need a competent engineer to keep this thing running," Jackson says, "and Stilinski doesn't suck. We could do worse."

"So it's settled?" Danny looks at each of them, pausing when he reaches Stiles. He offers him a wide, warm grin, and Stiles thinks that if he wasn't already sold on the idea (and the idea of _Danny_ ), he would be now.

Derek looks vaguely like he's about to object yet again, but a look from Danny quells him. He slumps in his chair and looks away. Lydia just shrugs.

"Just keep the windows blocked." Jackson glares at Stiles. "I don't need another pair of shoes ruined."

Stiles ignores him, nodding his head exuberantly at Danny. "Let's go have some adventures," he says.

***

(And they do.)


End file.
